


not the same kid from your memory

by starboykeith



Series: SHEITH MONTH 2017 [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, Body Worship, Communication, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Torture, Past Violence, Scars, Season 1, Sheith Month 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-11-29 11:49:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11440251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starboykeith/pseuds/starboykeith
Summary: Five times Keith saw Shiro's scars, and one time Shiro let him touch.





	not the same kid from your memory

**Author's Note:**

> for the prompt 'scars' for day three of sheith month 2017
> 
> title is from ignorance by paramore

**i.**

The first time Keith truly sees the extent of what the Galra did to Shiro is in the showers.

They'd had a productive sparring session: Keith still struggles to pin Shiro, but he's getting better and better at dodging and ducking and twisting because Shiro encourages him to play to his strengths; Keith has speed and agility in spades, and it always motivates him just a little more when Shiro smiles at him like that. Success had led them to train way longer than they should have done, and they use the showers in the training room for once just because they're panting and exhausted and Shiro's room is ages away.

They're together, in a sense - an unacknowledged  _something_  between them that Keith is afraid to name - but he still looks away as they start stripping, discarding clothes to the floor without care because it's  _hot_ , hours of exertion weighing heavily after the adrenaline has worn off.

Keith turns a little so he's facing away from Shiro, hands going to his waistband, but the glance he throws over his shoulder to check Shiro isn't looking becomes a stare and a quickly muffled intake of breath when Shiro pulls his shirt off.

He hadn't known.

Shiro's back is a veritable  _graveyard_  of scars, deep ruts scored into the skin there, cross-hatching, overlapping in places. Some are white and faded around the edges; some are pink and rough; some glow an angry red like a river of blood running through the flesh.

Some are little nicks like the barely-avoided cut of a knife; some are wider, as though the weapon used struck its mark dead-on.

Some are broad, and thick, and caused by great brute force, or by dedicated infliction of pain, careful revisions splitting the skin again and again until it scars deep and thick and traps the cells in a continuous battle to heal and survive.

Keith thinks he knows which is more likely. He feels suddenly unwell.

Shiro turns to him with a breathtaking smile, and Keith throws him an apologetic look and quickly shucks his clothes to join Shiro at the next showerhead.

He hadn't realised Keith had seen, and Keith doesn't intend on telling him.

 

* * *

**ii.**

The next time, it's no one's fault.

They were training again, harder, incorporating one of the bots into their routine, and Keith is laughing and sweating and Shiro grins and pulls his shirt over his head, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

Keith isn't even looking, but when he turns to question why Shiro stopped laughing, his heart leaps into his throat, and he says, quietly, "End simulation."

Shiro had either not known or not cared that the bot was headed straight for him.

"I'm sorry, Keith," Shiro says, and his voice is strange as he turns so they're face to face. Keith wrings his hands in front of him.

"It's okay," he offers. "I - I'll just go and, and shower, and I'll see you later."

It's an out. Shiro hesitates, and Keith silently wishes he'd take it, because he can tell something -  _this_  - is eating Shiro up inside.

"You can look." The tone of Shiro's voice makes it clear he'd rather be anywhere but here. "I don't mind," he says, and he so clearly does.

Keith doesn't want to look. He  _does_ , more than anything - wants to trace Shiro's scars with his fingers, wants to map the patterns of torture and pain until he knows them like his own - but not like this, never like this, when Shiro's gaze is defensive and his arms are folded like he's trying to shut Keith out even as he appears to invite him in.

Shiro's still staring at him with hard, horrible eyes, and Keith takes a deep breath.

"No," he says coldly, and Shiro blinks, mask slipping, genuinely taken aback.

"What?"

"No," Keith repeats, and he turns on his heel and stalks out of the training room.

 

* * *

**iii.**

Keith is running.

Red is following him at a distance, enormous eyes scanning the horizon where Keith cannot, and Keith's panting, almost choking on each breath as he runs and runs and finally,  _finally_  comes upon a cave, hidden in jagged edges of rock and spattered with - Keith gags, and shoves stones aside as he shoulders the entrance open - spattered with Shiro's blood.

He hears Red land heavily behind him, claws forcing craters into the ground and shaking the earth, but Keith cares about nothing but the weak coughing he can hear from the passage ahead.

"Shiro!" he shouts, and the coughing stops, and Keith runs faster, because he'd rather hear Shiro choking than hear nothing from him at all.

Keith can taste blood in his mouth when he finally falls beside Shiro, hands going to Shiro's chest and neck, desperate for a pulse, desperate to feel the steady thud of Shiro's heart under his fingertips.

The chest of Shiro's armour is caved in, and tears spring to Keith's eyes as he fumbles and rips away the breastplate. Behind him, stone is crumbling - Red is tearing through rock to reach them, and Keith can only hope she heeds his warning and avoids bringing the roof down on them - and Shiro's eyelids flicker, but he does not stir. It seems like an eternity before Red breaks through, as Keith does not dare move Shiro closer to where his lion is enraged and wrenching the earth apart to retrieve them.

It's another eternity as Red flies them back to the castle, as Keith holds Shiro's limp form in his arms and tries not to let the tears in his eyes spill over, as Coran and Allura take Shiro between them and bring him to a healing pod.

Keith stares, eyes glazed, as the glass slides over Shiro's unconscious form. Lance squeezes his shoulder, and then Allura and Coran and the other paladins leave him alone with Shiro.

Only a tank top covers Shiro's upper half - they had stripped him to his undershirt because his wounds were so extensive, and they needed to be bared to the pod to heal properly, but Keith's eyes land not on the new wounds, crusting with blood and pink with flesh revealed before its time, but on the existing scars trailing down Shiro's arms.

Keith is numb, but some small part of him is angry, because Shiro would never wear something so revealing, would never purposely reveal the scars cleaving his arm into sections, or the crushed folds of scarred skin where his right arm becomes metal.

He knows Shiro will wake, but there is a bitter taste in his mouth nevertheless: they hadn't apologised since the fight. They had exchanged nothing but the short words of strategy and orders and pretended to the others that there was no conflict between them.

But there was, there  _is_  - Keith is still angry and hurt that Shiro would make himself uncomfortable rather than appear weak in front of Keith; would martyr himself like that. He presumes Shiro was hurt by his blunt rejection, but he won't know for - for a while.

His eyes keep wandering back to Shiro's prosthetic, because he's never seen where metal meets flesh, and eventually he falls into a fitful sleep, head resting against the pod.

 

* * *

**iv.**

Keith kisses Shiro as soon as he steps from the healing pod.

At first he'd wanted to stay distant and angry, but it was impossible after days of staring at Shiro's still, peaceful face, watching his skin heal over day by day, waiting and waiting for Shiro to come back to him.

Shiro gathers Keith to him in a tight hug, and they hold each other until Keith wriggles away and brings Shiro the jacket he'd stolen from Shiro's room, having convinced Pidge to manipulate the door lock.

He knows it was the right move when real, tangible  _relief_  flits across Shiro's face and he pulls his jacket on. Keith watches the prosthetic disappear and knows he won't see it for a while.

"Thank you," Shiro says, and his voice is hoarse. "Keith, I'm - I'm sorry, for before - "

"It's fine," Keith says, surprising himself. "It's fine, Shiro."

They go to Shiro's room out of habit, and Shiro laughs when the door asks him to reset his fingerprint lock.

"Miss me?" he teases, and the joke hurts, a little bit, because Keith could hardly function in those days where Shiro was on the other side of the glass.

"Sure I did," Keith says casually, and Shiro ruffles his hair. It's such a normal, fond gesture that it makes Keith's breath catch with how much he's  _missed_  Shiro.

Shiro immediately throws himself down on his bed and closes his eyes, and Keith clicks his tongue disapprovingly.

"You've just slept for what, five days?" he says, as if he doesn't know the exact amount of time Shiro spent in there to the hour.

"Not  _real_  sleep," Shiro whines, and he cracks an eye open and pats the space beside him.

They don't discuss it, again - they don't discuss the kissing or the cuddling, it's always off limits - but Keith crawls in beside Shiro anyway, curling against his side and carefully resting his head over Shiro's steady-beating heart, real and whole and  _alive_.

Shiro falls asleep in minutes, but Keith doesn't mind when they're like this, when Shiro is warm against his side and not cold behind a sheet of glass. He counts Shiro's breaths, listens for the inhale, the exhale, the thud of his heart.

He tries not to look at the way Shiro's shirt has ridden up around his waist, revealing a strip of skin bisected with a wide, red scar. Keith's no medical expert, but the location seems to suggest surgery -  _real_  surgery, the kind that requires you to be unconscious - and he swallows, pushing away his questions. He feels guilty enough just for  _looking_ , because every time he looks properly, Shiro is unaware or asleep, and Keith knows he just has to give it time.

Sure, all he wants is to reassure Shiro until Shiro believes it too, but - he reaches for the hem of Shiro's shirt, and tugs gently until the scar is covered - Keith would wait forever if only it meant that Shiro knew he'd never leave.

 

* * *

**v.**

"This is the stupidest idea we've ever had," Keith hisses.

Shiro glances up at him from where he's checking the Galra they'd attacked are still breathing. "The stupidest? What about that time at the Garrison when you decided - "

" _No_ ," Keith interrupts immediately, because he knows exactly what story Shiro has in mind and the other paladins can still hear them.

"Please continue, Shiro," comes Lance's voice from their helmets, and Keith scowls.

Shiro laughs, but he changes the subject. "Alright, they're not getting up anytime soon."

"Okay," says Pidge. The furious clacking of a keyboard can be heard in the background. "You're good to go. Hopefully they wear clothes under their armour."

Keith wrinkles his nose, and hears Hunk groan through the headset.

"Gross, Pidge."

"It's a possibility!"

Keith exchanges a look with Shiro, and by unspoken agreement they both begin removing the Galra armour simultaneously.

"They wear underclothes," Shiro says flatly when they're finished, armour strewn across the floor beside them.

"Damn it," Lance swears, and Pidge and Hunk breathe sighs of relief.

"Let me know when you're ready," Pidge says, and then cuts the communication with a tiny burst of static.

"I don't know if we'll survive ten minutes in here without Pidge," Shiro says, and Keith laughs, but he also knows Shiro is trying to divert attention from the fact that they're going to have to get changed in front of each other.

They wear underclothes under the paladin armour, but there isn't enough room for modesty and tact when they're in a tiny space on limited time.

Keith tries not to look over, he really does - even when Shiro hits his elbow on the ledge and swears loudly, too loudly for a Galra compound - but Shiro kind of ruins Keith's focused gaze, directed  _away_  from him, when he starts  _talking_.

"I can't believe this is the only way," Shiro mutters, and it's quiet, but Keith knows Shiro's addressing him when he glances up and Keith helplessly meets his gaze.

It flickers away quickly, and Keith manages a witty comment of his own - "Well, stealing Galra tech was never going to be simple" - but his eyes linger on Shiro's legs this time.

They are less scarred than the rest of him, but Keith can't even feel thankful for this because it means Shiro took the brunt of the pain, the torture, the wounds, on his torso - so close,  _too_  close to where his organs keep him going and his lungs breathe and his heart beats.

There's a particularly nasty one - a knot, almost, of tangled and badly-healed flesh - on Shiro's left thigh, vaguely circular and thick as though something had punctured the skin there. Keith never got past basic first aid, but he knows a wound to the femoral artery can so easily be a death sentence, and horror makes his breath catch in his throat.

Shiro hears, and catches him looking.

He pauses, knuckles going white on the Galran leg plates clutched in his hands, and they stare at each other. Keith knows somehow that an apology would not be welcome.

"Keith," Shiro starts, and bites his lip, uncharacteristically nervous. "Can we - I want to talk to you, later. Properly."

"Okay," Keith says, and the word feels heavy in his mouth. He waits for Shiro to look away first, and continues strapping himself into unfamiliar armour.

They both jump when Pidge's voice crackles out from their paladin helmets.

"You guys ready?"

Shiro replies in the affirmative, but his voice is tinged with something more, something that weighs it down, and Keith feels an inexplicable guilt that doesn't leave him.

The mission is a glowing success, but all Keith can think about is that promise of  _later_.

 

* * *

**vi.**

_Later_  is a whole week later, due both to Shiro avoiding all conversation relating to the personal and the less avoidable obstacle of being defenders of the universe, and Keith spends the week in suspended anxiety where even a mention of Shiro makes his heart race.

They spend time together, but it isn't  _time_  - it's never in their rooms, only in the shared lounge area, and always around the others. Keith wonders how it's possible to miss someone when they're right in front of you. 

So after that week, of  _course_  Keith is a little suspicious when Shiro invites him to his room after dinner.

He needn't have worried; spending time with Shiro is the easiest thing in the world, despite the burning awareness that Keith doesn't  _know_  all of him anymore.

They're lying on Shiro's bed, voices rough from talking and talking, when Shiro says, "You know, I don't even remember when they took my arm."

Keith takes a deep breath, and reaches down to grab Shiro's hand. He never really initiates contact between them - Shiro's the tactile one, and even so Keith would be too unsure of whether his touch is welcome - but it feels right.

"I don't remember - a lot," Shiro continues, and he laughs, stilted. "There are these, these huge gaps in my memory; when you told me it'd been a year, I could hardly believe it."

"I'm sorry," Keith says quietly, because what else can he say?

Shiro squeezes his hand and then lets go, and Keith opens his eyes to question why but Shiro's sitting up, his back to Keith.

He exhales, and then abruptly strips off his shirt.

"I want you to look," he says unsteadily. "Properly, I mean."

And Keith believes him this time. It's in the hesitation in Shiro's voice, the trembling of his fingers where they fiddle with the duvet, the deep breath he takes when Keith sits up and ventures a little closer.

He starts at the top, and the scars are thicker there, their tails thinning as they reach down Shiro's spine, and Keith almost forgets himself and raises his fingers. He can feel the heat radiating from Shiro's skin, and takes his hand back quickly.

"You can touch," Shiro says softly, "if you want."

Keith hesitates, and then says, "Okay."

Shiro inhales sharply when Keith touches a finger to his back, and Keith almost loses his nerve, hands shaking, but he touches the first scar that catches the eye - one that lies over the curve of Shiro's shoulder and streaks across his shoulder blade, white and raised.

"I think that was one of the first ones," Shiro murmurs conversationally, and Keith has a horrible vision of Shiro cowering, curled up to protect his stomach and taking the worst of the hits on his back, but he presses on, determined, because this is who Shiro is now - this is what Shiro has been through, and Keith likes to believe that if he understands Shiro, Shiro will come to trust him, want to know him in return.

The next is a starburst around the centre of Shiro's back, bracketed by the knobs of his spine, and it's red and angry, looking for all the world like an explosion. There's a pink cross just on the right of it, on the edge where Shiro's ribcage ends, and Keith realises that somewhere there, under the flesh, should be Shiro's kidney.

Should be.

"Did they take," Keith starts, but he can't finish the sentence. He presses firmer on the cross and watches it go white with pressure.

"No," Shiro says, and he reaches back and finds Keith's other hand, holding it tightly. "Everything's where it's supposed to be."

He says it light-heartedly, but Keith can't help glancing at the place where Shiro's arm turns metal.

Keith continues noting each scar, cataloguing how they feel under his fingertips, and Shiro lets him, occasionally offering a quiet comment on their origin but otherwise just letting Keith touch, their joined hands resting on the duvet beside them. Keith isn't sure if he'll ever know them all, and he pauses when he realises the nervous energy has left his body, leaving him calm and his fingers steady on Shiro's skin.

Shiro turns slightly when Keith stops, and Keith leans up on his knees and forward to kiss him, cupping Shiro's cheek and resting their foreheads together.

Keith isn't great with timing, or social cues, or anything of that nature, really, and so it isn't the most shocking thing in the world when the first words tumbling out of his mouth are, "I love you," but Keith's horrified because  _they don't talk about that_ , and he's stricken as he watches Shiro absorb the words, lips parting as though he's going to speak.

But Shiro doesn't say anything, just smiles in a breathtaking way that makes Keith's heart beat faster, and before he kisses Keith he murmurs, "Thank you," and, Keith thinks, that's enough.

**Author's Note:**

> scars mean a lot to me, and my aim for this was to go with a theme of understanding and knowing. so ye
> 
> please leave a comment if you enjoyed, and subscribe to my profile or this series if you'd like to read more of my sheith month fics!
> 
> you can find me on twitter at twitter.com/starboysheith, and tumblr at starboykeith.tumblr.com !


End file.
